The festival of Christmas is a holy one. It is the day when Jesus Christ was born, on whose teachings Christianity is based. There are a lot of people in this world who follow his teachings and celebrate the merriment of this annual occasion with their friends and families together. This is a festival of happiness when people present gifts, especially to children who are given plenty of gifts on this occasion. The tradition of presenting gifts to children is associated with Jesus’ birth when after his birth, three wise men came from the East and presented plenty of gifts to the infant Jesus.
When a child is born to this world, he is pure. He doesn’t compare. When one sees a child, one is filled with emotions of love and desires to embrace the child. No one gets angry- neither the child and nor the onlooker. Infact they both are in the state of peace. It is we who distract the child into worldly things. Otherwise the child is concentrated towards the Almighty. A child isn’t worried about his food or money. He is happy with whatever his mother gives him. When we live in a state where we have full faith in God, when we know He is taking care of us and when we have complete faith in Him, then we will soon reach our destination.
It is said of Jesus that when some over excited disciples stopped children to come near Jesus, he resisted & replied:
“Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child, he shall not enter therein.” – Mark 10:15
If we want to celebrate Christmas in the true sense, we will have to become like the Christmas child which is within all of us and imbibe those virtues in oneself through which we can reach the state as that of a small child, without any bitterness, without any hatred, but only filled with love as that in a child.
Whenever we celebrate birthdays of the Great Masters, we must try to follow their teachings/keep their commandments. What did they preach? What did they explain? On Christmas, when a lot of people throughout the world celebrate Jesus Christ’s birthday, it is important to present a gift to our own selves- the gift to practice Jesus’ teachings. His teachings were teachings of love. His teachings taught us that we can be one with God. It is important that we must not stop only at the outer rituals. We must focus at the foundation, called the esoteric side of the religion. We must feed the soul so that it travels within and rises above body consciousness to be one with God.
On the occasion of Christmas, we must present ourselves with this important gift that we bring into our lives- love, morality and brotherhood, become like the innocent child as described by Jesus. If we make our lives where there are no outer disturbances so that life is filled with virtues and we are connected with God from within, we will find that we will speedily reach our destination, this will be the Christmas in the true sense.
